After mentioning that Deval had breathed some life into the moribund civil rights division, the editorial states:
But in a… deeply disturbing line of cases, Patrick has aligned the Administration with his former colleagues in the world of minority pressure groups, the champions of set-asides, quotas, and other forms of preference for women, the disabled, and racial and ethnic groups, be they actual victims of discrimination or not.
The cases cited in this piece include one where Deval supported using the courts to force the state of Missouri, as part of a desegregation plan, to pump more funds into the Kansas City school system until such time as minority students attained achievement levels on par with the rest of the nation. While on the surface this may seem benign, the editors took issue in that Deval’s argument:
an unprecedented standard in such cases that would supplant Brown v. Boards mandate of equal educational opportunity with an unwarranted, perhaps impossible to achieve diktat of equal educational outcomes. Patrick and the minority plaintiffs in the case are pressing for the change despite the fact that more than $1.3 billion in court-ordered spending over 10 years has produced only modest gains in integration and essentially no change in minority students test scores.
The implication of this position for Massachusetts today, especially not so long after the Brockton school-funding case was shot down by the SJC, is that Deval’s apparent solution for improving school and student performance is to simply throw more money at districts which have failed or faltered, rather than analyzing district policies and initiatives to see if they are actually working.
On the second case in the article, the editors wrote:
Patricks civil rights division defended a federal law requiring the government to award at least 5 percent of its contracts to small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. And working in concert with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Patricks agency has attempted to muzzle citizens in Berkeley, Calif., Palatine, Ill., and other communities nationwide who are upset over HUDs attempts to force their neighborhoods to accept halfway homes for drug addicts and shelters for the homeless.
Again, another case of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The issue echos in this state. Worcester, among other communities, has been grapling with the issue of halfway houses and shelters setting up in residential areas for some time. Despite the need for such programs, many individuals seeking out their help are people recently released from psychiatric hospitals and prisons, some of whom are registered sex offenders and drug addicts. The programs they enter are often unable or unwilling to implement measures to ensure that the neighboring public remains safe.
The final case discussed is by far the most controversial: Taxman v. Piscataway. Indeed, this court case is the most widely-cited example of Deval’s legal divergence from the mainstream.
Taxman involved how…
Patrick reversed the federal governments stance in a New Jersey case and defended a school boards decision to retain a black business teacher and lay off an equally qualified, equally senior white teacher exclusively on the basis of the white teachers race (had both teachers been of the same color, a coin flip would have decided the matter). Patrick contends the boards decision was a reasonable exercise in affirmative action, even though the board has never discriminated against minority teachers and maintains an integrated staff.
Taxman got plenty of ink beyond the pages of “The New Democrat”. The October 17, 1994 pages of the center-left “The New Republic” went further than the DLC in its critique of Deval’s logic in this case, in an article entitled “How the law is unraveling: Is affirmative action doomed?”. (no link available- obtained from database)
TNR wrote:
On September 7 Deval Patrick, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, filed a brief in a New Jersey case arguing that it is legal to fire a white teacher over a black teacher purely because of her race.
[F]iring someone on account of race crosses a crucial line, for it imposes all the burdens of racial preferences on a single white victim. By challenging this distinction, which is widely accepted by liberals and conservatives, Deval Patrick has committed the Clinton administration to a vision of racial preference that fulfills the most extravagant fantasies of a conservative attack ad. (“You lost that job because you were white….”) Rather than honestly confronting the costs of affirmative action, Patrick has blithely endorsed the most extreme form of racialism. And principled liberals in the administration are concerned. Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, for example, argued strenuously against Patrick’s position.
The most disappointing aspect of Patrick’s brief is the coyness with which it calls into question the basic principles of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action doctrine. Patrick’s first innovation is his argument that “faculty diversity” is a sufficiently compelling interest to justify firing people on the basis of race. In a letter to the editors of TNR, Patrick argues that “many Supreme Court justices” have described faculty diversity as a “laudable” goal. (See Correspondence, page 6.) He neglects to mention, however, that no Supreme Court majority has ever endorsed this view.
Patrick is also less than frank when he claims that “nothing in the controlling case law” clashes with his position. In fact, Justice Lewis Powell’s plurality opinion in the 1986 Wygant case explicitly rejected the argument that white teachers could be fired over black teachers “to provide role models for minority children.” Carried to its logical conclusion, Powell said, the idea that black students are better off with black teachers could lead to the very system the Court rejected in Brown v. Board of Education. More pointedly still, Powell objected that the role model theory allows the board to use racial preferences “long past the point required by any legitimate remedial purpose.”
Patrick dismisses Justice Powell’s concerns. Citing the dissenting opinion in Wygant by John Paul Stevens, he argues that there are a number of reasons why schools that have never discriminated in the past might seek racially diverse faculties. “It is one thing for a white child to be taught by a white teacher that color, like beauty, is only ‘skin-deep,'” wrote Stevens. “It is far more convincing to experience that truth on a day-today basis.” The argument may be intelligible for social studies teachers; but Stevens never suggested that students would benefit from being exposed to racial diversity in typing and accounting classes.
In any event, the “faculty diversity” argument is a red herring, since Justice Powell said explicitly that it is not compelling enough to justify firing people on the basis of race. Patrick argues that the Piscataway school board did not “unnecessarily trammel” Taxman’s rights. But in fact, the board violated Taxman’s right to have the same chance of keeping her job as anyone with equal seniority. The coincidence that Taxman and Williams were hired on the same day doesn’t change the constitutional principle: in a random, colorblind system, each would have had a 50 percent chance of keeping her job. “We’re not taking a position on whether this is constitutional,” Patrick told me on the telephone; but his brief takes a very strong position. It explicitly rejects Justice Powell’s central insight in Wygant: “While hiring goals impose a diffuse burden, often foreclosing only one of several opportunities, layoffs impose the entire burden of achieving racial equality on particular individuals, often resulting in s
erious disruption of their lives. That burden is too intrusive.”
That’s some pretty damning stuff, and only a small part of well-written article which criticizes every aspect of Deval’s handling of the Taxman case. It offers some legal insight into how radical Deval Patrick may really be.
However, voters are largely unaware of what Deval Patrick really stands for because the press has not done its job in fully investigating the public and corporate life of this candidate. The only Boston journalist to touch this subject is Jon Keller, who did so in a May issue of Boston Magazine and cited the TNR article in his own. Perhaps Keller’s piece came out too early and in a publication which lacks the readership and distribution of the Globe or Herald. His article had some interesting quotes as well:
Race, [Patrick] argued, played no greater weight in the boards decision than any other qualification, a claim directly undercut by the schools personnel director, who wrote to the white teacher to assure her that her job performance wasnt a factor.
and
Amid mounting national controversy, a coalition of black civil rights activists, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, raised $433,500 to settle with the plaintiff, reportedly out of fear of setting a legal precedent that could undermine race-based affirmative action programs. The Clinton administration reacted to the uproar and a rising chorus of political and judicial protest by publicly promoting the notion of affirmative action based on economic status, not race. But Patrick says he has no second thoughts about his handling of the matter: We did the best we could. [The case] was right on the law, hard on the politics. I sided with the board, it wasnt about black and white. There wasnt any precedent entitling her to a coin toss. (emphasis added)
Of course, by “her”, Deval meant Taxman. He wanted to fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court, but his peers in the civil rights community were afraid the court would shoot down the entire concept of affirmative action in the process. Too radical even for Jesse Jackson?! Meanwhile, Clinton changed his tune from race to class.
One paragraph from “The New Democrat” encapsulated the sentiment of many observers to the Taxman debacle:
Patricks course is both morally indefensible and politically dangerous… Morally, it is the equivalent of burning down the village in order to save it. He would combat discrimination in the past by practicing
discrimination in the present, contributing to and
perpetuating the cycle of racial resentment.
There’s no doubt that Deval’s personal story is inspiring and that he overcame personal adversity to attain personal success. However, it is important that voters are able to square his campaign positions with his public and corporate records. It is also important that a potential Democratic nominee be able to stand in the face of relentless GOP attacks. It’s a sure bet that the Healey campaign has been sitting on a lot of this information for some time, as have right-wing blogs and publications, waiting for the right moment. But where has the press been, to ask the tough questions? To start, what do “justice” and “fairness” mean to Deval Patrick?
Interesting read, CentralMAGuy. I know absolutely nothing about Deval’s record at the DoJ beyond the little blurb on his website.
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I would recommend your post, but there is no “recommend” button, which appears to happen from time to time. David has explained that there is a “glitch,” which they can correct.
but the recommend button is not available. I bet Ms. Taxman couldn’t hear the the “justice” in his (Deval’s) voice. I would also bet that he (Deval) did not “inspire” her with “hope.” No wonder why Deval is very light on the details and specifics of his record and past! Excellent job, CentralMaGuy, too bad that you had to do the job of the press on this one. Now, maybe someone in the press will have the courage to write about these topics so that the Masssachusetts’ electorate ” will rise up from their knees,” make an informed decision and make sure that Deval Patrick, this out of the main stream individual, is not the nominee of the Democratic Party or the Dems will lose again in November extending the losing streak to 20 years.
that’s why there’s no Recommend button. (There’s also a glitch, but I don’t think that’s the problem for this one.)
“It is also important that a potential Democratic nominee be able to stand in the face of relentless GOP attacks.”
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I can’t wait for Kerry Healey to stand there next to Deval Patrick at a debate sometime in October and talk to him about race! Where can I get tickets for that? I want to see it live!
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Personally, I think the TNR piece is way off base, but I guess you have to consider that it was written in 1994. EVERYONE was conservative in 1994. There was a severe backlash brewing against the campus diversity police back then, which, I suppose, exists today. Which is why Deval has to be careful to ensure that voters understand that he believes in affirmative action, but understands that Taxman was entitled to the coin flip there..
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In fact, I almost positive I’ve been present when Deval was asked this exact hypothetical and he said a coin flip would be appropriate. Anyone else remember hearing that?
First, you think that Healey would bring up “race”? I think the term she’d use would be “reverse discrimination.”
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Second, let’s just assume for the moment that everybody, as you say, was conservative in 1994. That doesn’t change Deval’s position on the Taxman case. Nor does it change the coin toss quote Deval gave to Jon Keller in 2006.
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If Deval is telling people that he’s now in favor of a coin toss in a hypothetical situation, he’s flip-flopping, being inconsistent, or worse.
Sorry. Just thought that was funny. Huh.
Pun was not intended. Good call.
“Reverse discrimination.” THAT will really throw him off his game. Does Deval seem to you to be the kind of guy who would be unprepared to talk about race relations in an educated and unqualified manner? Come on.
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And flip flopping? That’s so 2004.
It’s a matter of Healey and the GOP taking a message to the public. “Reverse discrimination” is a catchy term that angers and scares people. It’ll work.
his actions. Deval and his supporters will learn on September 19th that Actions Speak Louder than Words. Patrick’s new nickname should be “say one thing but do another Deval.” You Deval supporters who are apologists for this obvious reverse racism and who follow Deval blindly, never criticizing him even when he is wrong are no better than the 30 to 35% of Americans who still follow President Bush with the same misguided and dangerous loyalty.
Say, that’s catchy!
heck of a performance by Kason Gabbard tonight, huh?
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Great that truly nice guy Joe Ganley of Gab’s campaign is marrying truly nice lady Mary Liz Kane, formerly of Boston DNC2004
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two more weeks of this glop though, then we can hopefully be Dems again, those of us who are Dems, others invited too.
he said she wasnt entitled to the coin toss, he didnt get the nickname quota king for this one instance.
First: though the editorial is unsigned, the publisher of this outfit was the (in)famous Al From, and the chair of its editorial board was Will Marshall, who “recently served on the board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a committee chaired by Joe Lieberman and John McCain designed to build bipartisan support for the invasion of Iraq.” Always important to consider your source.
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Second: the Missouri desegregation case, called Missouri v. Jenkins, was decided 5-4, with Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer in dissent. The case was far more complicated than the DLC’s simplistic take on it. Here’s a passage from Justice Ginsburg’s dissent:
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Third: it’s hard to tell exactly what government contracting case they’re talking about, but it appears to be Adarand Constructors v. Pena. That case – whose majority opinion was written by my boss at the time, Justice O’Connor – was, again, not so simple. It concerned a morass of confusing and contradictory statutes and regulations which even the Court found no way of completely sorting out (“We are left with some uncertainty as to whether participation in the 8(d) subcontracting program requires an individualized showing of economic disadvantage.”) Here’s a passage from the majority opinion:
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Not quite the cut and dried case the DLC would have you believe.
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Finally: the Taxman case was a tough one, and it’s certainly arguable that Patrick made the wrong call in that one. Nonetheless, Keller’s Boston Magazine article was quite unfair to Patrick. I explained why at length here.
Ah, yes, the DLC. I like some of the stuff it puts out, and other things not so much. The From/Marshall editorial does raise legitimate questions. While the DLC is likely reviled by many who frequent this blog, it is nonetheless influential, especially in 1994-5.
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As for Keller, he may not have been entirely fair in theorizing that Deval’s upbringing was responsible for his positions at DOJ, but the quotes and the Taxman actions were Deval’s.
you mean in helping Republicans control our government… sure
The reality is the DLC is influential, and was much more so in the 1990s. Glib remarks attacking a source rather than the issues raised by the source do nothing to further the discussion.
David, I’m tired, but good gravy trying to read those blockquotes is harshing my mellow. Only a lawyer could love that stuff.
That’s kinda the point, actually. Most cases are more complicated than the sound bite that they get on the news, or from the crowd that writes DLC editorials.
Release date cerca 1990; heavy fuzzy metal guitar; overused monotone vocals that copied earlier grunge groups. Easy music to slam to….I’ll give the album a 6.
First, great post CentralMAGuy. Detailed, documented, and very well researched. It’s too bad that the local press has not met its responsibility in fully vetting the background of Deval Patrick. Having run statewide prior to this, both Chris Gabrieli and Tom Reilly have been very well vetted. Perhaps now we will see this story/pattern of behavior get the attention that it deserves.
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Once again, questions, not many answers or specifics from Deval Patrick, & more smoke. Once again, the high minded ear-catching slogans of Deval Patrick and his campaign are not matched by his track record under the harsh light of detailed examination.
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As CentralMAGuy noted “it is important that voters are able to square his campaign positions with his public and corporate records”. Was there any board that Deval Patrick was on and/or any position that he held that was not caught up in some huge controversy over civil rights?
I’ve always liked the saying, “You know you’re doing something right if they’re shooting at you.”
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Deval’s my candidate because he has the courage of his convictions, not in spite of his convictions.
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If you disagree with his position on affirmative action, or even in the Taxman case, I respect that. But if you’re looking for a guy who’s just looking to avoid controversy, someone who’s more of a follower than a leader, or someone who just can’t handle a big fight, then yes, Deval’s not your guy.
I had no idea what Deval’s DOJ background was like until I went looking for it. There’s barely any detail on his website. I had barely any information on his corporate record from his website, until the press starting putting that stuff out there. His ads are far from informative, full of feel-good platitudes about non-controversial stuff like “hope” and “vision” (like anybody would be opposed to hope and vision), lots of footage of him giving a great pre-convention speech but every word lacking substance, or an empty classroom where “magic” could happen but where details are scarce.
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Rousing stump speeches and pleasing ads do not a qualified candidate make. Deval has picked his words carefully, controlled the release of information from his campaign, and has been successful at keeping the public in the dark about his record. Nothing more.
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So Deval Patrick isn’t a “qualified candidate”?
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You know, the Democratic Party is bereft of candidates who excite and inspire, and people like you are taking potshots at the only candidate to come down the pike in ages who actually motivates people to engage and work do absolutely nothing to further Democratic Party principles or causes. You don’t have to vote for him and you don’t have to support him, but you should be applauding the fact that the Party has an intelligent, thoughtful, motivated guy whom people seem to want to follow. This is great stuff, the stuff that reinvigorates Democrats who are tired of the same old same old, who are left cold by the good ol’ boys who paid their dues and created an environment, both within the Democratic Party and without, that is increasingly incestuous.
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You may not agree with Deval Patrick’s views on things, and you may decide that one of the other candidates is a better choice, but this crap that Deval Patrick isn’t “qualified” is just plain bullshit, pure and simple. Kerry Healey will be pleased to count you among her supporters, I imagine, should, god forbid, Patrick win the primary.
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Your comments are symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. Everything.
Deval Patrick himself made essentially the same claim about his opponents on Monday, according to yesterday’s Herald. Brett Arends quotes Patrick at the end of the Labor Day breakfast:
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Arends notes that “[t]he breakfast usually emphasizes party loyalty.” I was surprised by the ad hominem nature of the comment. It’s not a criticism of his rivals’ positions, but reductive assignations of identity meant to define them as shallow, inferior candidates who would not make good governors. Gabrieli and Reilly’s responses were, respectively, that Patrick offers only “lofty slogans and empty promises” and that he is “For-It-All Deval,” likely to raise taxes. These might sound equally harsh but they are still critiques of his campaign and positions, not personal put-downs.
declared his opponents “unqualified,” which has very specific meaning. Moreover, I’m not aware of a single individual on this site who believes that either Tom Reilly or Chris Gabrieli is “unqualified” to be governor. Indeed, we’re blessed; we have three highly qualified people running for the Democratic nomination for governor in this state.
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So give it a rest. Let’s not conflate campaigning, a process in which each candidate highlights his own strengths in comparison to his opponents’ weaknesses, with a blanket condemnation that the other is “unqualified.”
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Words have meaning, and there’s certainly no mystery regarding the meaning I was responding to in my comment above.
enjoy your commenst and insight lightiris I feel you are attacking the messenger not the message. I fail to see CMG’s comment stating DP is not a qualified candidate. He is appropirately saying two of his attributes are not,unless of course DP only has rousing stump speeches and pleasing ads which we all know is not true.
In the blockquote. Here it is again:
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I really don’t know how else to read this statement in the context of his larger comment. Pretty clear to me he doesn’t think Patrick is a qualified candidate for governor.
believes Deval Patrick is unqualified to be governor, I imagine he will vote for the only arguably “qualified” candidate running for the office, Healey, should he win the primary. One can always stay home on election day, I suppose.
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See the problem? This is exactly what I mean when I wrote that words have meaning. Deeming Patrick as “lacking substance,” “full of platitudes,” and offering only “rousing stump speeches and pleasing ads” sure sounds like the poster believes him unfit for the corner office. As if this weren’t bad enough, the poster also states that Patrick has done “nothing more” than “pick[] his words carefully, control[] the release of information from his campaign, and “keep[] the public in the dark about his record.” Cap it all off with a declaration that the ability to make “rousing stump speeches and pleasing ads,” are not enough to render him “a qualified candidate,” and you have what we have.
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The reason for this whole post was to examine the background and experience behind Deval Patrick’s candidacy, a campaign that has been marked by, in terms of content, inspiring speeches and ads but sorely lacking in details. The point I was making with the sentence you boxquoted was that all I’ve seen of Deval has been rhetorical. Yes, he’s energizing as a speaker. Yes, his rise from poverty to success is inspiring. But there has to be more to his public persona than inspiration in order to exhibit his qualifications. He needs to prove he’s qualified by showing voters the details of his deeds, and not just more inspiring words.
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If he’s so proud of the work he did for DOJ, why hasn’t he come out with details about that work? Same with Coke, Texaco, etc? It’s apparent that he hasn’t because he knew controversy would follow- and rightfully so.
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Democratic voters have the right to vet their candidates. And no, I won’t be supporting Healey in the general election. I’ll be voting for the Democrat. However, Deval’s supporters need to get over the reality that their candidate has some tough questions to answer.
Can’t you guys get something new?
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Taj’Deval, Justice Dept, Ameriquest, Killer Coke, United, Taj’Deval, Justice Dept
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Is there going to be an Ameriquest diary tommorow? Or a new Jon Keller bombshell on the same old story that’s been proven wrong a hundred times?
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How many times can people recycle the same old stuff I’ve read, weighed and considered time after time after time?
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There’s truly nothing valid that people can throw at Deval and they’ll keep launching the same, tired attacks time after time again. News flash: They aren’t working.
The DoJ items aren’t scandals, but they are aspects of Patrick’s record that distance him from many voters. I know they confirm my suspicions about his conciliatory rhetoric. In his main government experience he punished individuals and communities in a very top-down way who diverged from his very specific ideology.
Has anyone brought up Ruby Ridge yet?
Affirmative action cases are very complicated because they involve not only complicated legal arguments, but emotions and a lot of politics. Deval Patrick’s legal position in the Taxzman case, when he was the head of the Civil Rights Division under the Clinton Administration, was not extreme or radical; it just was not a winning argument in the end. To make more out of it than that is being dishonest.
that’s not quite accurate. Patrick’s position in Taxman was fairly out there, and eventually the Clinton Justice Department repudiated it (after Patrick had left). Read more.
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That said, however, I do agree that Taxman is really the only example of something arguably wacky that Patrick did while at DoJ.
More trivia than anything else, but there was significant criticism of Mr. Patrick, from the right of course, that his handling of the unfair lending enforcement was a shake-down: DOJ was too big to fight so the Thrifts would just pay and settle. You’ll see the word ‘extortion’ used, I believe (recollect) in public testimony.
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The argument never came to an end. The NAACP raised money to pay off the Plaintiff and the case was rendered moot.
Mrs Taxman won the verdict in a federal court and was defended and backed by the US. it wasn;t until the appleal and the CLinton administration took over. DP reversed the governments position and derfended the school board. It was the wrong argument at the firing, at the distrcit court level and at the suprem court
You’re certainly crediting Deval Patrick with extraordinary power here. Do you think Patrick made that decision on his own?
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Don’t you think the reversal might have had something to do with the Clinton administration having different opinions of the case than the Bush I administration?
” I sided with the board” Ill give him the credit, he is after all the one who stood up against coca cola, what should lead be to believe he wouldnt have stood up to reno or clinton.
This article says it was Mr. Patrick’s idea and that the Clinton Administration was a bit miffed.
I worked for the Justice Department back when Janet Reno was AG, although not for the Civil Rights Division. No one there made any decisions on their own. I am sure a lot of what took place was due to politics.
any comments or thoughts on the DOJ civil rights division’s decision that Vicki Weaver and her young son’s death at ruby ridge were not a violation of their civil rights? As far as I recall the DOJ report cleasrly indicated the federal government used excessive force
What is wrong with these positions? They are squarely Democratic. Let’s look at them minus all the legalese:
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So what’s wrong with asking a company to look at their hiring practices and reach a little further and consider groups of people they might overlook? What’s wrong with looking at hiring practices to see if they are unfairly screening out groups of people? And what’s wrong with, when it has been determined that a company’s policies and practices have unjustly screened out a group (like a police department), what is wrong with specific remedies to that?
I’m always amazed at how whites tell Blacks to “suck it up” when it comes to this issue, but they are the ones at the head of the lawsuit line when they feel slighted in any way by a policy they deem to be “reverse discrimination”.
The only thing that makes this controversial is that it is intertwined with race, and there are a lot of race-baiters out there. A better approach would be to talk in terms of economics and need, because educational problems, although very associated with race, are not caused by race.
We do that all the time in government when it comes to political affiliations, don’t we? The MTA can’t have too many Republicans on it, for example. If you owned a business and you employed 9 women and a man, and had to lay one off, and it came down to equally an qualified man vs. a woman, isn’t a valid goal to not have an all-female staff?
Sure, I can understand that this is unpalatable to many. What if the decision was over 9 meat-eaters and a vegitarian? It doesn’t seem like a valid argument to lay off a meat-eater to have a staff that has a vegatarian on it.
But treating a meat-eater like a member of a racial or ethinc group ignores history, history that is not so distant, and it also ignores that racism still exists today (just check out anonymous blogs — how many of those people make decisions as to who to hire or fire?).
Patrick addressed this issue in his debate. He said that when it comes to firing, he would favor the coin toss. Maybe he he has rethought his position. Maybe he knew the question was a bear-trap and he wanted to avoid it. But either way, the position isn’t so radical to Democrats. Diversity is good. Sometimes hard choices have to be made. Sometimes the good of the whole is more important than the good of one of the pieces.
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All of those issues come down to clashes between groups of people. Yet you imply that Patrick ignored justice and fairness because he didn’t vote the way you liked. I like Patrick specifically I think he will look at the big picture in such cases, and will not take the free-market position that “let money decide who gets trod upon”.
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But the final kicker is that you’re taking the cases that Patrick argued and calling them his positions. Why not do that to Reilly? I’m sure he tried some interesting cases when he was a defense attorney. Maybe he defended some child molesters, elderly-rapists, etc. — we don’t know, because he isn’t forthright with that information, he refuses to release it. If he did, would you claim that he is in favor of rape? Of child molesting? Then how can you equate a case argued by Patrick to be his position?
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It’s my understanding that the faculty was already homogenous, but the case asserted more homogeneity. (is that a word?) The attempt to affirmatively micro-manage was the aspect that made the matter more controvercial.
The difference that republicans are not a protected class.
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What was proposed in Taxman seems to be nothing other than the asserted approval of specific government disfavor of an individual because of that person’s race.
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Wow. That is extremely troubling. Are the briefs in that case available online?
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And an extra ditto on your last paragraph.
NoPol, your long comment simply makes a case for strong forms of affirmative action and other aggressive government interventions that most voters have decided are not worth the divisiveness and localized injustices they bring on. That’s fine, you’re welcome to those beliefs. But they are also a major part of Deval Patrick’s record in government. Yet he doesn’t talk about them, nor even about the principles behind them, most likely because he must know they are unpopular. So, as with the corporate career, he is downplaying his actual record in favor of inspirational rhetoric.
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Your last point, that Patrick shouldn’t be held accountable for the cases he argued as a lawyer, is questionable in general, but especially so in this case. When you’re the deputy AG for civil rights the cases you argue and how you argue them are effectively the crafting and implementation of federal policy. You’re not just some hired gun taking a case.
Let me offer a personal obervation. Way back in 1981, I was one of hundreds of teachers in an urban school system in Mass. facing layoff due to Prop 2 1/2. If the school system laid off teachers strictly by seniority, as required by the collective bargaining agreement, and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, most teachers of color, having been the most recently hired, would have been laid off. Imagine trying to teach in an urban high school where the faculty did not come close to reflecting the racial make-up of the student body? It would be a disaster. As for me, I left the profession.
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As I understand Patrick’s position in Taxman, all he was saying is that the diversity of the teaching faculty could, consitutionally, be considered one factor in making decisions about lay-offs. Yes, that was inconsistent with prior Supreme Court precedent at the time, but, in my mind, then and now, that is the right decision.
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If Healey wants to turn that into a Jesse Helms campaign for November, I won’t be surprised, but I am surprised by the reaction to this issue on this website.
“What do you call people who criticize Democrats?”
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“Republicans.”
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‘Nuff said.
people that don’t criticize their party, leaders or candidates were called republicans…….interesting.